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Killing pipol just bcuz they're in ur way is plain wrong in itself. But i do respect ur opinion bcuz we all grew up with different views. I hav to honestly say that it is annoying to hav someone in ur way but killing just isnt the answer.

Well, first off it was quite hard to read your reply due to lack of proper grammar. Nevertheless we all as you quoted "grow up different ways". Now, I can understand your belief of basic morality. Like Light said though "People need to get off their moral high-horse, and this is what people are truly like" 'as he points to the computer screen' This is true, I'm sorry to say; people are all about appearance. So please EternalNeptune, do us all a favor and do not act so moral. Now, you say I am annoying yet you respect my decision. I believe we call this inconsistency in the premise. "Killing is not the answer." Okay, I can understand, again, your moral view behind this; nevertheless I want you to think about this rationally... law is not to be confused or intertwined with morality - in which you are doing. Now, if you're not than you are irrelevant to the topic because morals have to be pushed aside when you are speaking of justice and the law. Light, yes what he did was immoral and maybe wrong.. it does seem what the general will of people say goes. Nevertheless sometimes it is an extreme in which had to be met. Light did what he thought was in the best interest of society; to cure the rotting world and kill the rotting people if you will. My main point nonetheless is how to you expect this world to ever become more peaceful, more better with rotting people in the world? It's a rhetorical question - you can't, you need such things as Capital Punishment to "kill" off the evil. You really believe an evil man will truly be civil and try to become good? If you do in fact believe this, than I think you are the one in denial, my friend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kafriel

I don't know of any country that still applies such penalties, and if there are any, it's not justice. Things would have been a lot better if Light had Geass instead of Death note, but guess that's a story for another time.

Then you don't read much of the news. The United States of America, Australia, and Iraq. All are participants of the death penalty, with many more. What makes Capital Punishment "unjust" I ask you to clarify this, rather than equivocate around the question.

State-sanctioned murder is still murder. Some of us don't like killing, and some of us don't like to grant the state God-like powers. In my eyes, it's an unjust practice, and luckily most of the Western world has abandoned the practice. There's of course also the issue of it being irreversible, and humans are notoriously flawed.

Alright, Echoes, I believe you're still looking at this from an irrational perspective. I understand that "some" people do not like killing and believe it to be wrong in whatever way they please. Nevertheless you're right that humans are flawed and will always make mistakes - this is fact. Capital Punishment is not fully band in the western world, the United States has many states in which still participate. Also, many of the islands do too. Capital Punishment has nothing to do with giving the state "god-like" powers, we already give them enough power do we not? Capital Punishment is a legal act, that is all. If one is ignorant enough to commit a capital crime, then yes, they do deserve to be punished. I will not continue on with that point because then I feel I would be just in a Capital Punishment debate. Murder is murder, yes but murder is not Capital Punishment, Echoes, please do not confuse the two.

It has nothing to do with giving the state "god-like" powers you say? I must disagree with you there. Anyone who takes it upon themselves to take another's life is acting as though they are a god. For it is only, naturally God's right to take the life of a human. Which is why murder is a sin, capital rights, or otherwise. You are right murder is murder, but capital punishment is also murder. Trying to hide murder behind capital punishment isn't right. It's murder, because it is still against a law, God's law.

Sinfully Naomi, I love your argument. Nevertheless your premises are questionable this is why: I said they are not given God-like powers because if this was the case we are how shell I say questionable assumption (we have to assume God exists). Yes you are right Sinful, murder is a sin, but again you are forgetting the Bible (assumed word of God) says homosexuals are to be put to death - sounds like contradictory to me. "Murder is murder, but Capital Punishment is also murder." Hmm this sounds circular, nevertheless your logic is faulty because Capital Punishment is NOT murder. Let me illustrate this for you people, by definition, murder is the unlawful killing of another human being. I think we all can agree on that - now Capital Punishment, is the LAWFUL killing of convicted criminal who commits a capital offense such as Murder of the first-degree or treason. So as you see murder is unlawful, and Capital Punishment is lawful, so your theory is premise inconsistency. Finally, your closing statement in which I will not quote is again not right. You have yet give us any evidence that Capital Punishment is in fact murder. Plus you're again assuming that it goes against the Natural Law, or divine. So, I am sorry, I have much respect for your theories and I have seen you write some brilliant posts but this is not one of them.

Well, first off it was quite hard to read your reply due to lack of proper grammar. Nevertheless we all as you quoted "grow up different ways". Now, I can understand your belief of basic morality. Like Light said though "People need to get off their moral high-horse, and this is what people are truly like" 'as he points to the computer screen' This is true, I'm sorry to say; people are all about appearance. So please EternalNeptune, do us all a favor and do not act so moral. Now, you say I am annoying yet you respect my decision. I believe we call this inconsistency in the premise. "Killing is not the answer." Okay, I can understand, again, your moral view behind this; nevertheless I want you to think about this rationally... law is not to be confused or intertwined with morality - in which you are doing. Now, if you're not than you are irrelevant to the topic because morals have to be pushed aside when you are speaking of justice and the law. Light, yes what he did was immoral and maybe wrong.. it does seem what the general will of people say goes. Nevertheless sometimes it is an extreme in which had to be met. Light did what he thought was in the best interest of society; to cure the rotting world and kill the rotting people if you will. My main point nonetheless is how to you expect this world to ever become more peaceful, more better with rotting people in the world? It's a rhetorical question - you can't, you need such things as Capital Punishment to "kill" off the evil. You really believe an evil man will truly be civil and try to become good? If you do in fact believe this, than I think you are the one in denial, my friend.

LOL I did not call you annoying. I was referring to something else. I shall reply with proper grammar. Id like to make one thing clear though. I do not apply morals to make myself look good. I am sincere with my actions since I have morals to guide me. By the way, please answer this. How come Light has the right to kill people if he finds them evil? Everyone has a bit of evilness inside of them. Light is merely a human. Is he not prone from error? Bestowing upon himself the duty of taking away lives of people he finds evil just gives everyone else the idea that when someone does something wrong to them gives them the right to pull out a gun and shoot the offender. And about society. Anyone who has watched Deathnote knows that Light did not act for the best interest of society. He acted for his own best interests. He may have had supporters but there were also people who were against it. He did what he saw was fit. He did not respect "justice". He played with it. He made the world his playground. Using the Bible as reference will only prove to be your disadvantage for God is also One of compassion and forgiveness. I will answer your rhetorical question. Yes I do believe criminals can change for the better. There are so many examples to cite of people who have turned away from sinful actions.

Suppose a murderer has already killed hundreds and will continue to do so.
After narrowing down thousands of suspects to just 50. Will you

1. Kill the 50 to ensure the murderer is dead.
2. Illegally imprison all 50 for life to stop the murderer.
3. Free the 50 and allow the murderer to continue its killing spree

If you choose 1 or 2.
Can you be 100% sure the murderer is among the 50 and not a scapegoat or an accomplice?
Suppose the murderer is among the 50. You may saved many from potential death but at what cost?

If you choose option 3.
You may have saved 49 lives but at what cost?

Does it mean your "Justice of no murder" has failed?
Or you have a plan to go around the loophole?

And yet Light killed criminals regardless of whether they commited a capital offense or not.

Except for you, your post is circular. This brings no further help to the argument because I believe we all know this by now. Light was not doing his own Capital Punishment, actually it would be ignorant to relate Light (Kira's) actions with Capital Punishment; because Kira's actions were not lawful, that is not the argument at hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EternalNeptune

LOL I did not call you annoying. I was referring to something else. I shall reply with proper grammar. Id like to make one thing clear though. I do not apply morals to make myself look good. I am sincere with my actions since I have morals to guide me. By the way, please answer this. How come Light has the right to kill people if he finds them evil? Everyone has a bit of evilness inside of them. Light is merely a human. Is he not prone from error? Bestowing upon himself the duty of taking away lives of people he finds evil just gives everyone else the idea that when someone does something wrong to them gives them the right to pull out a gun and shoot the offender. And about society. Anyone who has watched Deathnote knows that Light did not act for the best interest of society. He acted for his own best interests. He may have had supporters but there were also people who were against it. He did what he saw was fit. He did not respect "justice". He played with it. He made the world his playground. Using the Bible as reference will only prove to be your disadvantage for God is also One of compassion and forgiveness. I will answer your rhetorical question. Yes I do believe criminals can change for the better. There are so many examples to cite of people who have turned away from sinful actions.

Alright, my apologizes on the grammar comment, it was not to be abusive towards you; I was just stating it for further reference.

First off your "Morals" statement is begging the question, you say you're not applying morals rather being sincere, because you're guided by morals, well sincere in context means you're being moral. So I ask how can you not apply morality and when you're being sincere (guided by the one thing you're not applying).

I never once said Light had the right to kill anyone. Light obviously did this because he wanted to have a better world; a world free of "sin" and rot. It's a reasonable cause really, sure it's not moral but it did work nonetheless - 70% less crimes would help make me sleep. You bring up a good point that Light may have not helped society in regards to what if someone pulls out a gun, claim. The flaw in that is who would be that stupid? Kira would just kill them for committing murder, right? Kira, would in fact be the "New-God" this would be fact, people would fear Kira and would never try such, because society would assume if they killed someone on the same reason Kira did, Kira would just kill them - you see the circulation I assume.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree that Light acted on his best interest, because I ask you what did Light gain? Really nothing a sense of power? Power he cannot gloat in because he must stay hidden. Light's motive was to clean society and rid the criminals from it - of course he had to kill some innocent people that became burden. It's not right, but that's not the argument at hand.

Now, for your whole Bible-God comment, this is all questionable assumption, as I stated above, I only used the Bible to prove it's contradictory, much like you have just shown - how can a God be a compassion and forgiveness if he(God) is willing to kill people who commit sin such as homosexuality and many others to name. Murder is wrong UNLESS I say so... huh...

Alright, that is a fair opinion, all I ask is for you to actual cite some. I will warn you right now though - if you do not have a solid foundation for this claim I will accuse you of a false cause. You have to show me that a majority - rather than a minority because if not then it's against the odds and will not stand in your argument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eiyuu99

Suppose a murderer has already killed hundreds and will continue to do so.
After narrowing down thousands of suspects to just 50. Will you

1. Kill the 50 to ensure the murderer is dead.
2. Illegally imprison all 50 for life to stop the murderer.
3. Free the 50 and allow the murderer to continue its killing spree

If you choose 1 or 2.
Can you be 100% sure the murderer is among the 50 and not a scapegoat or an accomplice?
Suppose the murderer is among the 50. You may saved many from potential death but at what cost?

If you choose option 3.
You may have saved 49 lives but at what cost?

Does it mean your "Justice of no murder" has failed?
Or you have a plan to go around the loophole?

This question is just false dichotomy you're giving an unreasonable question with limited answer. All three of them are irrational if you ask me and have no good logic - what if I was able to decrease the number of suspects to 10, or 20. Now, that of course would be from L's perspective, if I was looking from Kira's I would simply... wait.. yes I would wait, unlike Light, I am actually not corrupted by the thought of power. This murder you claim would slip up and if I kill all of them I have more casualties than wanted. Too assume I will kill the murder before he reaches the 50 death toll would make most logical sense that I begin, after study, killing who I think is most suspicion one by one. Say I am mistaken, a human act and I kill two, or three people before I actually got to the murder. Well that might not be morally right, but at least I killed the murder, saved many potential lives at the lowest casualty rate possible. That is how I would answer your question, even though it's very unreasonable. Don't ask me for no more favors.

Alright, my apologizes on the grammar comment, it was not to be abusive towards you; I was just stating it for further reference.

First off your "Morals" statement is begging the question, you say you're not applying morals rather being sincere, because you're guided by morals, well sincere in context means you're being moral. So I ask how can you not apply morality and when you're being sincere (guided by the one thing you're not applying).

I never once said Light had the right to kill anyone. Light obviously did this because he wanted to have a better world; a world free of "sin" and rot. It's a reasonable cause really, sure it's not moral but it did work nonetheless - 70% less crimes would help make me sleep. You bring up a good point that Light may have not helped society in regards to what if someone pulls out a gun, claim. The flaw in that is who would be that stupid? Kira would just kill them for committing murder, right? Kira, would in fact be the "New-God" this would be fact, people would fear Kira and would never try such, because society would assume if they killed someone on the same reason Kira did, Kira would just kill them - you see the circulation I assume.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree that Light acted on his best interest, because I ask you what did Light gain? Really nothing a sense of power? Power he cannot gloat in because he must stay hidden. Light's motive was to clean society and rid the criminals from it - of course he had to kill some innocent people that became burden. It's not right, but that's not the argument at hand.

Now, for your whole Bible-God comment, this is all questionable assumption, as I stated above, I only used the Bible to prove it's contradictory, much like you have just shown - how can a God be a compassion and forgiveness if he(God) is willing to kill people who commit sin such as homosexuality and many others to name. Murder is wrong UNLESS I say so... huh...

Alright, that is a fair opinion, all I ask is for you to actual cite some. I will warn you right now though - if you do not have a solid foundation for this claim I will accuse you of a false cause. You have to show me that a majority - rather than a minority because if not then it's against the odds and will not stand in your argument

Well God is also capable of that but He gives them a chance to change. Being sincere doesn't mean you always base your actions on your morals. You're just sincere because that's how you really feel. The thing is Kira isn't God. He just happened to find a notebook which would be the key in determining the fate of millions of people. Murder will always be wrong. There just so happens to be certain levels of culpability. Light gained as I mentioned earlier the power over people's lives. Compare that to gaining anything else in the world. Honestly speaking, if you had power like that, of course you wouldn't just blurt it out to other people. Killing innocent people is already wrong. Thank you for saying it yourself. Do I really have to cite people? I mean of course there are people who have changed for the better. And you're also forgiven about the grammar thing. No biggie. Haha

Originally Posted by eiyuu99
Suppose a murderer has already killed hundreds and will continue to do so.
After narrowing down thousands of suspects to just 50. Will you

1. Kill the 50 to ensure the murderer is dead.
2. Illegally imprison all 50 for life to stop the murderer.
3. Free the 50 and allow the murderer to continue its killing spree

If you choose 1 or 2.
Can you be 100% sure the murderer is among the 50 and not a scapegoat or an accomplice?
Suppose the murderer is among the 50. You may saved many from potential death but at what cost?

If you choose option 3.
You may have saved 49 lives but at what cost?

Does it mean your "Justice of no murder" has failed?
Or you have a plan to go around the loophole?

An actual detective would study the previous murders, find a link and catch the murderer without using underhanded means.That way he would stop the murders at the cost of his hard work.

This question is just false dichotomy you're giving an unreasonable question with limited answer. All three of them are irrational if you ask me and have no good logic - what if I was able to decrease the number of suspects to 10, or 20. Now, that of course would be from L's perspective, if I was looking from Kira's I would simply... wait.. yes I would wait, unlike Light, I am actually not corrupted by the thought of power. This murder you claim would slip up and if I kill all of them I have more casualties than wanted. Too assume I will kill the murder before he reaches the 50 death toll would make most logical sense that I begin, after study, killing who I think is most suspicion one by one. Say I am mistaken, a human act and I kill two, or three people before I actually got to the murder. Well that might not be morally right, but at least I killed the murder, saved many potential lives at the lowest casualty rate possible. That is how I would answer your question, even though it's very unreasonable. Don't ask me for no more favors.

I thank you for your opinion,
though you did not reply how you would act after L narrowed the suspects to 10-20. 10-20 is not 1.
"killing who I think is most suspicion" entails you already narrowed the suspects down to 3 or fewer. Unless you believe in potshots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kafriel

An actual detective would study the previous murders, find a link and catch the murderer without using underhanded means.
That way he would stop the murders at the cost of his hard work.

Well, my question has hidden implications.

Option 1 and 2 entails the sacrifice of a minority to ensure the safety of a majority.
Whether you imprison/kill 1, 49 or 100, you accepted the option of [Using "Evil" to kill "Evil"]

Option 3 is what most investigators in our world do. Many follow it because of Law, "Justice", fear of losing their job, etc.
Yet, you must accept that it is not absolute because corruption, terrorism and many acts of atrocity are rampant

Can you ensure you can identify the murderer without using underhanded means and before the murderer kills another?
How many will need to suffer or die before you can obtain enough evidence to identify the murderer?
0 death? 1? 10? 100? 1000? Or perhaps the murderer will never get caught?

Please reflect on these points deeply, Kafriel.

Last edited by eiyuu99; 2009-02-14 at 13:29.
Reason: death of one man is a tragedy, death of a million is a statistic

Eiyu99, the reason I did not fully answer your question was simply because it was not a valid question. Now, for someone in L's situation, at least if I was L, I would go with my deduction and reasoning to suspect the mostly likely to be the criminal. I would continue to narrow it down, via, patterns, motives, personal observation, and so on... Much like L did in Death Note, he suspected several different people, but had more the focus on Light, and continued to do so. That is what detectives, D.A's and police do. The least casualties and the most sufficient way to find the criminal is the best way, usually not the easiest but it can be done.

Remember that we're talking about an anime, real life has a practically infinite number of options: they could set potential "victims" based on the murderer's patterns and catch him unprepared, they could use a surveillance group, increased security,etc. to ensure the people's safety first.

Quote:

Can you ensure you can identify the murderer without using underhanded means and before the murderer kills another?
How many will need to suffer or die before you can obtain enough evidence to identify the murderer?
0 death? 1? 10? 100? 1000? Or perhaps the murderer will never get caught?

Please reflect on these points deeply, Kafriel.

If they have killed many people already then more detectives will be on the same case. If one fails to succeed in apprehending the offender then they are demoted or sacked for being unable to do their job and someone with more potential is recruited.
Death note is an anime where the good VS evil notion is twisted in an evil VS evil version.It is meant to be entertaining and not puzzling,because all of the characters have already forsaken the world of morals and compete using their evil sides.

I personally do not believe that Light was right to pass judgement on criminals. Actually, at a certain point he became so corrupted that he didn't seem to care about that as much as not being caught. Everyone deserves the right to due process, and no single person should have the power to punish others.

Certainly L was entirely perfect in his methods either. I'm also against torture and it seems he would have used that. But I believe he at least cared about justice, whereas I could only see Light as an arrogant sociopath who wanted to be worshipped.

Well I believe in H.L.A. Hart's "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" Speaks about how the idea of how "Might makes Right" is wrong. Now there is a Lon Fuller's "Positivism and Fidelity to Law - A Reply to Professor Hart" But I do not believe I will accept that because there is not much in there to debate against the issue at hand.